2 Chronicle articles finalists in Story of the Year competition

Two stories from last year’s Chronicle are finalists for the 2014 National Scholastic Press Association Story of the Year award.

The Story of the Year award is given to one story in each of five categories: news, feature, editorial, sports, diversity and multimedia.

The award recognizes quality reporting on specific issues and problems. The winners from each category, except multimedia, will go on to compete for the $1,000 Brasler Prize.

Julia Aizuss’s ’14 story, “Outside the Binary,” is one of 10 finalists competing in the diversity category.

Tyler Graham ’15 is a finalist competing in the sports category for his story, “Rebounds to Receptions.”

Chronicle and Vox staff will be at the National High School Journalism Convention in Washington, D.C. Nov. 6, where the winners from each category will be announced.

When Aizuss was looking for a feature story that was specific to Harvard-Westlake, she remembered two students that considered themselves outside the gender binary.

“What I wrote about is rather basic knowledge in the LGBTQIA community, but is so, so underreported and unknown outside that community,” Aizuss said. “So I’m glad my feature’s getting some recognition and exposure and so on, and if anything, I hope anyone who’s read it was inspired to learn more about the topic.”

Graham’s story profiles Erik Swoope ’10 and his career switch from a college basketball player to a NFL football player.

The story made national sports headlines.

“The reason the article worked out so well is that Erik was really awesome communicating with me,” Graham said. “An opportunity to write a sports story about something that has an important impact on not only the Harvard-Westlake community, but also the nation as a whole was pretty unique.”